Sportsmen’s Junior Program is an after school and summer camp youth development program that operates six days a week year round for children and teens age 5-18. In all aspects of the Junior Program, young people receive guidance not just on their tennis stroke, but also on many of the difficult issues and choices confronting them. It contains strong literacy, academic support, and youth mentoring components. Using the game of tennis as the vehicle for teaching critical life skills, Sportsmen’s Tennis Club has taught two generations of low-income youth from diverse backgrounds and cultures the value of hard work and discipline, appropriate goal-setting, cooperation, racial respect, and winning and losing gracefully.

Highlight
* 1,000 Boston inner city, low-income Boston youth receive tennis instruction after school and/or at summer camp
* 1,500 Boston students participate in tennis clinics during May Tennis Festival Week
* 200-250 students utilize the after school Homework Center, twice (or more) weekly
* 40 middle and high school girls are involved in the HEY Sister program for the entire academic year
* 600 youth are educated about health issues such as diet, nutrition, fitness, hygiene, etc. and their links to responsibility for self and community and actively improving their health through physical exercise. Summer jobs are provided to 15-20 high school and college age tennis instructors, nearly all of whom are or have been Sportsmen’s Junior participants

The Academy
In addition to the Junior Program, the Sportsmen’s High Performance program has successfully dispelled the myth that tennis is an elitist sport; open only to a privileged few. STC cultivates African American and Latino tennis players in a field that traditionally has only had a select few. In fact, Sportsmen’s has been almost single-handedly responsible for the growing number of African Americans competing on the regional tennis circuit.